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Do you own a famous person's old bass?

#61
malthumb said:
I have an Alembic Series I that I bought from Stanley Clarke.

Kind of a cool story behind it, too.

Sometime in 1991 or '92 I was driving past the Fox Theatre in Detroit and heard on the radio that tickets for a Stanley Clarke / George Duke concert were going to go on sale at 10 am. It was about 9:45, so I parked and got in line. Got 2nd row seats.

My date (who has since become my wife :hyper: ) and I were in our 2nd row seats and the 1st row was empty. Stanley stood on the seats right in front of us and totally went off on a solo. I noticed then that the bass he was playing was different than the Small Body Series I bass he usually played.

Fast forward to May of 2000. Stanley's divorce was being finalized, so he was selling off all his gear. I wound up buying the bass he played that night!

Here it is........

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Stanley holding the bass for a promo shot

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Peace,

James
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That is really cool! I saw Return To Forever a couple of months ago! I was in the second row which fits around the first row in a way that there were no seats in front of me! Stanley was amazing! They all were!
 
#62
lambro said:
I have a fretless Wal bass that was made in 2000 for Midge Ure, a singer, becasue he wanted to get as close to Mick Karn's sound as possible, Midge and Mick had collaborated in the past...turned out Midge wasnt much of a player

it also happened to be one of the very few Wals witha Mrk II body and Mrk III neck joint, probably the best overall design they ever did.

not really vintage but a good story none the less
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I was big into Ultravox AND Japan and Mick Karn---that's a cool story!
 
#64
Not a bass...but my beloved Mesa Boogie Bass 400 and 1516 cab was 2.5 yrs old when I bought it used at MB Hollywood back in 1991. I was told it belonged to Joe Walsh's bassist and it had just come off tour(s). That story didn't matter to me and I doubt it was anyone famous, I just loved the amp (still do).
 
#66
waynobass said:
Yes, that was my point. (Except the "famous" instruments are older.) They have no magic attached to them. They are just pieces of wood.

I wish everyone would stop worshiping rock stars.
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I don't think it's about worship, I think its about what the instrument means to someone, and the magic can come from having an affinity with the instrument that once belonged to your one of your influences as a player.
 
#69
When I was 18, I bought a really thrashed black Pedulla bass from We Buy Guitars on 48th Street that had a lot of red goo on the front and in the pots and it was heavily implied that it had been used by Gene Simmons. I choose to believe it.

I also had Steve Swallow's 1962 Gibson EB-2 and there was documentation on that (from the music store I bought it from). I got it for $500 because it had some weird prototype replacement pickup and strange toggle switches. I threw it up in the air one night during a show and the light caught my eye and it smashed to a lot of little pieces. What can I say? I have a limited amount of respect for jazz history.
 
#71
I've got an MTD 5 string fretless that has H4 inlaid on the headstock. I took in to NAMM and asked Michael Tobias what it stood for. He told me he made that bass for Hubert Eaves the 4th, who plays/played drums for Erykah Badu. It's a sweet bass!!:hyper:
 
#72
waynobass said:
What's the point? The bass has somehow soaked up the "famous" person's talent and mojo, and will pass that along to you? I don't think so.
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waynobass said:
(Except the "famous" instruments are older.) They have no magic attached to them. They are just pieces of wood.
I wish everyone would stop worshiping rock stars.
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You may not have lived enough to understand what follows, and this is something that seem to be way over your head, but I will try to explain.

Once an instrument has been owned and played by someone, it has a soul, more importantly it has Charma,
Your right.
It’s not going to pass on it’s talent or make you better.
But yes,
It has magic attached to it.
It has nothing to do with worshiping, but rather with paying tribute.
It’s history and stories lives on.

I'm also working on something ;)
 
#74
mattq said:
if the good folks at guitar center weren't lying to me to make a sale, my gretsch hollowbody used to belong to lee rocker of the stray cats fame
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Cool, I hope it is true!

I just missed out on Hugh McDonald's Sadowsky P-J a couple of years ago. Not too bummed because I bought another Sadowsky but it would have been a kick to own it.

Dan K.
 
#75
jacofan12609 said:
WOW! Is that this one?
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Yes, that is. The only change to it is that it has since gone back to Fodera (by the guy that bought it from Richard Bona) for a refurb and a swap out of the Hazlab pre for a Mike Pope pre...I will post pics and comments once it is in my hands and I have set it up and played it a bit.
 
#76
I had an old beat up P bass [three-tone sunburst finish with a tortoise-shell style pickguard and a Rosewood fingerboard] that had "FUNK" scrawled in the heel of the neck and filled in with blue ink. Man, this thing had seen better days, and I wanted nothing to do with it even though some guy told me it might'a been owned by some guy that played on some boring old music.

I traded it for this beauty:

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I walked away with a bass once owned by Morty Lipshiits, the founder of legendary Polka-Metal band, The Kielbasa Kings. Dang, I practically stole that bass. What a deal.
 
#78
nellie48 said:
Layne Staley of Alice in Chains and Mike McCreedy of Pearl Jam formed a side project band called Madseason. They employed an unknown bass player named "Baker". They recorded one album "Above" and played a few shows. Years later Baker OD'd on Heroin and died.
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Jeez, I had no idea. Sad, especially when you consider what that album was about.

About ten years ago, I owned Alphonso Johnson's trans-black fretless Vigier Arpege 5 for a minute. Sorry, no pics.
 

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